European Heritage Days: Exhibition at the Jean Cocteau Bastion Museum

In 1957, while working on the decorations for the wedding hall in Menton, Jean Cocteau noticed an abandoned 17th century fort: the Bastion.
The mayor at the time, Francis Palmero, suggested that he turn it into a museum of his works and the artist, charmed by the place, accepted. To respect his wishes, the museum now dedicated to him regularly changes the exhibition of his works.
However, Jean Cocteau kept a close eye on every detail of this creation, from the decoration of the doorways on the first floor to that of the frontispiece, not forgetting the floor on the ground floor representing a lizard "symbol of Mediterranean laziness", all three of which were made of pebble mosaics.
Unfortunately, Cocteau never saw his final work in Menton completed: it was his adopted son Edouard Dermit who finished the work according to the directives he had left, and the "Musée du Bastion de Jean Cocteau" was inaugurated in 1966, in the presence of his lifelong friend Francine Weisweiller.
The original collection comprises 102 works, supplemented over time by other donations and acquisitions. In 2005, it was merged with the Wunderman donation to form a collection of more than 2000 pieces.

Musée Jean Cocteau le Bastion. museecoteaumenton.fr. Retrieved from https://www.museecocteaumenton.fr/Musee-Jean-Cocteau-le-Bastion.html

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